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Date Published: 21/10/2024

Malaga airport had the second most delays of any Spanish airport this summer

A report by AirHelp has revealed that Madrid and Barcelona are the most reliable airports in Spain

Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport is the airport with the second most delays in Spain this summer, according to figures compiled by tech company AirHelp. The expert in air passenger rights states that 36% of the departures or arrivals to Málaga Airport had some kind of delay this summer season.

Palma de Mallorca, with 46%, takes the top spot, while according to the same report, the most punctual route at Málaga airport is the connection with Asturias, while those with the most problems are the connections with Abu Dhabi airport and King Khaled airport (Saudi Arabia).

At the other end of the scale, the average punctuality rates of Barcelona and Madrid airports were among the highest, with 34% and 27% of flights affected by delays, respectively, while the specific route linking Lanzarote with Bilbao airport is one of the most reliable in the whole country.

Record August for Málaga Airport

Despite this dubious honour (or perhaps partly because of it), Málaga Airport had its best August ever this summer, with more than 2.6 million passengers passing through. Passenger numbers increased by 9.6% compared to the same period last year, while flights increased by 6.7%.

These figures mean that, on average, 85,548 travellers paraded through the airport with their suitcases. The bulk of the users counted were on commercial flights (excluding general and executive aviation), totalling 2,646,020.

Of these, 424,358 travelled to or from a Spanish city (5.3% more than a year earlier), while 2,221,662 were on international flights (+10.7%). With regard to international traffic, the markets with the greatest demand in absolute terms were the UK (644,776 passengers), followed by Germany (217,810), France (172,912), the Netherlands (135,690) and Italy (135,690).

This rapid growth at Málaga Airport may have contributed to some of the teething problems in terms of punctuality of flights.

Meanwhile, connections from Málaga grew with Qatar, Croatia and Romania, with the number of travellers doubling on all these connecting flights, followed by the Czech Republic (68.6%), Greece (+59.4%) and Poland (+58%).

At the same time, Spain is waiting to find out whether the forthcoming connection between Andalucía and China will be at Seville or Málaga. Air China has not yet chosen the location for what would be its third connection in Spain, but the Junta de Andalucía had assured that the airline ‘has the numbers’ for this strategy and it will start as of 2025. Madrid and Barcelona are the other two destinations where the Asian airline has connections to Spain.

Andalucía is the autonomous community in Spain that receives around 16% of the Chinese tourists who visit the country every year – around 10,000 Chinese tourists a year.

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